


Cover the Sun

by loyaulte_me_lie



Category: The White Queen (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-18
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-17 21:57:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2324564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loyaulte_me_lie/pseuds/loyaulte_me_lie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecily Neville loses her sons, one by one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cover the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little note to say this Cecily is much more the Cecily in Sunne than in TWQ. Enjoy! :)

**I.**

The first time, it’s agony. There’s a throbbing silence as she reads the letter in a hand trembling like one stricken with the palsy, and then the pain claws up her ribs and into her heart and she chokes back the tears that threaten to burst from her like a spring tide.

“Ma mere, what is it?” Margaret asks, leaning over her shoulder.

Cecily is not sure how she gets the words out, but eventually she does. “Your father…”

“No.” Margaret’s hands fly to her mouth. “No.”

Cecily almost cannot bring herself to go on. She knows how close Edward, Edmund and Margaret be, and Edward is all alone somewhere in the Welsh Marches facing the prospect of battle with this hanging over his shoulders like a leaden cloak.

Margaret is looking at her with an expression Cecily hopes never to see on her fifteen-years-of-age daughter’s face for as long as she lives. Margaret’s hands are balled into fists in her skirts, fine, heavy material plunging over the clenched fingers.

“It’s Edmund, isn’t it?”

**II.**

The second time, it’s expected. George has been treading a fine line since even before Isabel died in childbed, and with Edward’s Woodville Queen whispering intoxicating poison into his ear, Cecily knows that it won’t be long. Elizabeth doesn’t forget, never forgives and Edgecote Moor still looms sharply over the horizon.

To his credit, Edward breaks it to her himself. It is just the two of them, and her eldest son looks at her with weariness etched in every line of his face and conflict dancing behind his clear, blue eyes. Edward has always had a knack for disguising what he is truly feeling, and Cecily is grateful that he is not now.

“Forgive me,” is all he says, and Cecily can do naught but nod as he comes into her arms and they both weep, not for the man George has become, but for the boy he used to be.

**III.**

The third time, it’s such a shock that she feels faint, sits down heavily in her chair. Of course, she knew Edward was ill, but from his Queen’s formally polite letter, it sounded no more serious than a trifling cold.

Her son, the King, her precious eldest son, _England’s King,_ is dead. The abbess’ face is wracked with pity, and Cecily turns her head away. She remembers him as a jubilant nineteen year old, riding into London through an ocean of cheers, she remember him at twenty-four, the proud father of his beloved firstborn princess, she remembers him victorious at Towton and Tewkesbury, that man, her son, her glorious, golden son, the Sunne in Splendour cannot be dead, not dead at forty, it’s not _right,_ it’s not _fair._ But life is rarely ever fair, Cecily knows that too. The sun has been extinguished, and in the days that come her grief will be streaked with foreboding as England ventures into the gathering shadows of a boy-King’s reign.

**IV.**

The fourth and final time, all she feels is a weight lifted off her chest. Richard has not been the same since Anne died, has been eating little, sleeping less, there are circles the colour of thunder beneath his eyes and ghosts haunting his every moment. As his mother, she wants, needs to do something to paint the life back into his black and white portrait, but every attempt is gently but firmly rebuffed.

The abbess sits down beside her. “Madam,” she says. Cecily knows what will come out of her mouth. “Madam, your son, the King, is dead.”

It never gets any easier, hearing that your children that you bore and nurtured and raised will never bound through the door, all smiles and silver tinkling laughs. To her, Richard is still the little boy who would follow Edward and Edmund everywhere, with little Anne Neville trailing a few feet behind, in her memories, he’ll always be her youngest with his mop of dark curls and his serious eyes and loyalty, his godforsaken loyalty that has almost been the death of him more times than she cares to remember.

Cecily takes a deep breath. “I would have Masses said for the repose of his soul.”

“As you wish, Madam,” the abbess says, and tactfully withdraws, leaving Cecily alone to grieve in peace.


End file.
